Tag: crime

Secret Service has Hunter Biden gun probe docs it denied having

The Secret Service has located hundreds of pages of records tied to the investigation of a gun belonging to Hunter Biden – despite having denied they existed, a government watchdog group said Thursday.

Judicial Watch is investigating whether the Secret Service intervened on behalf of President Biden’s son after the incident, and it has sued the agency for all materials related to the reported purchase, possession, and disposal of the firearm owned by Hunter Biden.

The group has accused the Secret Service of repeatedly changing its position on whether it has any documents related to the investigation. 

“The Secret Service’s changing story on records raises additional questions about its role in the Hunter Biden gun incident,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

“One thing is clear, Judicial Watch’s persistence means the public may get records that the Secret Service suggested didn’t exist.” 

On Nov. 10, the Secret Service revealed in a court filing that it has located over 100 records, totaling over 400 pages, potentially related to Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act request. 

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Marauding Bands Of Looters Are Stealing Billions Of Dollars Worth Of Merchandise As America Descends Into Lawlessness

Three years ago, I bet that 99 percent of my readers had never heard of ORC.  Of course by now almost everyone knows that ORC stands for “organized retail crime”, and it is prompting retailers to permanently shut down stores all over the nation.  Right now, retail theft is happening from coast to coast on a scale that we have never seen in our entire history.  Marauding bands of looters are barging into stores, grabbing as much merchandise as they can possibly carry, and then loading it into their vehicles.  Online marketplaces make it easier than ever to turn stolen goods into cash, and at this point organized retail crime has become a multi-billion dollar business.  As I have repeatedly warned my readers, America is descending into lawlessness.  The thin veneer of civilization that we all depend upon on a daily basis is rapidly disappearing, and if we stay on this path our society will soon be completely unrecognizable.

Every year, organized retail crime gets even worse.  According to Fox Business, the number of ORC incidents in 2021 was 26.5 percent higher than in 2020…

ORC incidents soared 26.5% on average in 2021, with 81.2% of retailers surveyed reporting “somewhat more” or “much more” ORC-associated aggression and violence year-over-year, according to the survey.

Of course things are even worse here in 2022, and this is particularly true in states where shoplifting laws are very soft.

For example, in Portland some stores are often victimized “more than once a day”…

Some of the hot items are perfumes and expensive handbags. Often, stores are victimized daily and sometimes more than once a day. A local pastor whose window looks out on the local Nike store says he sees thieves running out of the store with their arms full of stolen stuff all the time. And the excellent KGW-TV story makes the point that this stolen stuff is not to feed hungry children. It is organized theft. The stuff gets sold online and in flea markets.

Needless to say, it is almost impossible to run a profitable business in such an environment, and many store owners are throwing in the towel.

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Top prosecutor in Payne and Logan counties arrested after child pornography investigation

The first assistant district attorney of Payne and Logan counties was arrested Monday after his apartment was searched as a result of a child pornography investigation.

Kevin Etherington, 53, was being held Tuesday in the Payne County jail on a child pornography complaint and a computer crimes complaint. His bail was set at $500,000.

His boss, District Attorney Laura Austin Thomas, announced after his arrest that he had been fired.

“I cannot express how dismayed and disappointed I am about this development,” she said Monday night.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation disclosed the arrest in a news release. The OSBI said agents from its Internet Crimes Against Children unit conducted the search of his Stillwater residence.

In requesting the search, an OSBI agent reported about 153 videos and photos depicting child sexual exploitation were identified within his Google account.

Google notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about “suspected sexual abuse material” linked to Etherington on July 26, the agent reported. The center then forwarded 14 cybertips to the OSBI on Sept. 1, according to the news release.

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NYC Landlords May Soon Be Banned From Performing Background Checks on Prospective Tenants

Landlords in New York City may soon be prohibited from conducting criminal background checks on prospective tenants under a new piece of legislation under review by city lawmakers.

The legislation, called the “Fair Chance for Housing Act,” would even prohibit landlords from performing background checks on prospective tenants convicted of murder and other violent crimes, according to the New York Post. 

Reportedly, the legislation does not prohibit landlords from checking New York’s sex offender registry for prospective tenants, but the current language leaves landlords “vulnerable” to renting their properties to sex offenders who committed crimes in other states because out-of-state sex offender registries are not outlined in the legislation.

And, the bill does not affect New York City Housing Authority complexes, as they are required by federal law to carry out background checks. The bill also excludes homeowners renting out single rooms.

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Controversial energy official charged with stealing woman’s luggage at MSP 

Sam Brinton, one of the first “openly genderfluid individuals in federal government leadership,” was charged with felony theft last month after allegedly stealing a woman’s luggage at MSP Airport.

The MIT grad went viral earlier this year when he announced his new role as the deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the U.S. Department of Energy.

“As one of if not the very first openly genderfluid individuals in federal government leadership, I was welcomed with open arms into the Department of Energy all the way up to the Secretary whom I shared the stage with in a Pride month celebration panel just today,” Brinton wrote on Twitter at the time.

He said he is not a Biden appointee but instead was hired as a career employee in the Senior Executive Service. Brinton accepted the job in February and began in June, according to media reports.

Prior to working in government, Brinton was an anti-conversion therapy activist who taught “Kink 101” workshops on college campuses, according to The National Pulse. A photo from one of these workshops shows Brinton in a dress as he stands over three males in leather dog masks.

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DNA Used to Uncover 70s Serial Killer Who Raped and Strangled College Student in Ohio

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joseph T. Deters announced the indictment of Ralph Howell for the rape and murder of Cheryl Thompson in 1978.

Howell was killed in an automobile accident in 1985.

Howell was posthumously indicted for one count of Aggravated Murder, and one count of Rape.

On March 24, 1978, Cheryl Thompson went missing after leaving her home to meet her boyfriend at a bar in Oakley.

On April 8, 1978, Thompson’s body was discovered along the bank of the Little Miami River by an Ohio Department of Natural Resources officer. Thompson’s cause of death was asphyxia caused by strangulation. It was also determined Thompson had been raped.

Physical evidence was collected from Thompson’s body and stored at the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office. However, due to the forensic limitations of the time, the investigation quickly went cold. Loveland police officers and agents at the Bureau of Criminal Investigations never stopped investigating.

This year, the DNA sample taken from Thompson’s body was sent to a third-party genealogy company in hopes of developing a suspect. The results narrowed this DNA sample to a specific family tree. Ralph Howell was included in these results.

Further investigation showed Howell was arrested in 1983 for abduction. In that incident, Howell picked a woman up on the side of the road and offered to drive her home. Once in the vehicle, Howell placed a rope around the victim’s neck and began to strangle her. He told her he wanted to have sex with her. The victim was able to fight Howell off and escape from the vehicle.

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Michigan Judge In Hot Water After Allegedly Making False Assault Claim

A Michigan judge is in hot water after her alleged misconduct in a bike shop.

The Judicial Tenure Commission filed a public complaint against Wayne County Judge Demetria Brue after an incident that began when she rented bikes at Mackinac Island Bike Shop in August 2019, The Detroit Free Press reported.

When Brue and her colleague returned the bicycles, she told employees there was an issue with the bike and they should not have to pay full price, the complaint states. Brue also spoke to the owner of the shop, but they were unable to come to an agreement. Brue told the owner, Ira Green, multiple times that she was a judge, the complaint states.

Brue did not respond to a request for comment.

At some point during the 20-minute discussion, Brue allegedly reached over the cash register, took the receipt out of Green’s hands, and ripped it.

After ripping the receipt, she then allegedly falsely claimed that the store owner assaulted her and appeared to play every card she had.

“You assaulted me,” she said. “Did you just assault me? You took my receipt and tore it up. I want the police. Now we need the police. I am going to call them. You snatched my receipt and threw it away and grabbed my hand and you hurt me. You touched my hand with force and violence. I am a female. I am a judge. I am here for a conference and you … I am an African American female. That was racist, and it was disrespectful and it was violent.”

When police arrived she claimed to them that she was assaulted until the officers reviewed the security footage.

She admitted that she was not assaulted and the officers assisted in reaching an agreement where the judge did not have to pay for the bike rental.

She has been accused of breaking 10 rules, including making a false statement to a police officer.

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Colorado club shooting suspect is nonbinary, attorneys say

The public defenders for the suspect in the mass shooting at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub said in a Tuesday night court filing obtained by a New York Times reporter that their client is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.

The big picture: The suspect, Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, is facing multiple murder and hate crime charges over the shooting at Club Q last weekend that killed five people, per Max D’Onofrio, a city spokesperson.

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First Trans Representative in New Hampshire Arrested After Stalking Woman, Violating Restraining Order

The first openly transgender person elected to public office in New Hampshire has been jailed on charges related to stalking a victim who had a protective order against him. Stacie Laughton’s arrest comes just days after he was re-elected to the New Hampshire House as a Democrat.

Laughton, born Barry Charles Laughton Jr., was arrested on November 12 after his most recent violation of a stalking order that had been placed against him by an unidentified woman in his community in July. Laughton, 38, had contacted the victim over social media.

According to the Hudson Police Department, this is not the first time Laughton has violated his restraining order. In August, Laughton had similarly attempted to make contact with the victim, and was arrested in September for the violation. He was released from custody shortly after.

There was virtually no media coverage of his September arrest, which likely meant voters were unaware of it ahead of the November 8 elections, during which Laughton ran for re-election as a Libertarian Democrat candidate in Nashua’s 4th Ward.

Laughton placed second out of four candidates, securing him a seat in the House of Representatives. New Hampshire has the largest state House in the country with 400 representatives, and all three top finishers in the race took seats.

In addition to his recent stalking order violations, Laughton is on bail for a 2021 arrest in which he was charged with misusing the Nashua 911 emergency system.

Between May and July 2021, he sent seven texts to Nashua 911, prompting police officers to respond to his address. On each occasion, they determined there was no emergency. At the time, Laughton denied sending the texts and claimed that he was being “spoofed” by an unknown perpetrator.

He also complained that media coverage of the arrest was making him look bad.

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